Friday 8 July 2011

La Pere Noel est Une Ordure - Santaclaus is a stinker/bastard

1982 by Jean-Marie Poire

In French Cinema we always can see certain teams. I mean, the same group of actors and technicians behind many movies, which is mainly because of their association with some theatre groups. Splendid used to be one such group and we can find these same actors behind many movies. LPNUO was a famous play by this group, which they made into a movie. And what a movie, this could clearly be a bench mark for anybody wanting to make comedies.

Its Xmas eve night. 
Pierre and Therese works as telephone counsellors for those who are on the verge of committing suicide. 
Their owner/colleague Madame Musquin wants to attend the dinner with family, but is having a horrible day, getting stuck inside the lift and later stuck with her car
Josette and Felix are a poor couple. Josette is the sister of Therese, so when she walks out from Felix(she is pregnant), she goes straight to Therese for a nights shelter. Felix is machoistic, loves Josette but cannot help man handling her. He follows Josette to get her back, in anyways he can so has a gun
Katia, a depressed transvestite, who telephones Pierre and Therese and then insists on meeting Pierre to not to commit suicide. 
There is also a Belgian national, who is after Therese with all the weird dishes, to impress her

These are all the main characters in this movie, all of them weird in some ways than the other. 99% of the movie happens over the Xmas eve night with only the final few scenes happening on the early morning of Xmas day.

And what a comedy it is? Brilliant laugh after laugh follows all the way through the end. Comedy is created out of weird characters, brilliant dialogues, bloody brilliant expressions and even some very simple slapstick. But overall, it is brilliant brilliant comedy.

There is not a single performance by any actor, which is anything but brilliant.

I dont have anything more to say. This is one movie, which we can watch a 100 times and still laugh it out. I am sure, this movie must have been remade by Hollywood. If not, it is quite surprising.

The French are maestros of Comedy, it seems.